After their sleepy start in the 2015-16 campaign, many were surprised that the Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup. What was the secret of their second half success? Most experts will say that the answer is team speed and their ferocious forecheck. If this is a “copycat” league, we are likely to see many teams looking to increase team speed in reply. Are we entering a new phase in hockey? Is team speed the new thing?

The World Cup of Hockey offers many reasons to be excited about the state of the game we love. However, some have questioned whether the two novelty teams are phony fabrications. Team North America (under-23 players from USA and Canada) and the pan-European team represent something other than national pride. Is this experiment worth the departure from national pride as the organizing principle of an International tournament?

These two oddball groupings may be gimmicks, but they offer something both powerful and unexpected.

Team Europe is the oldest and most experienced team in the the tournament. Team North America (NA), however, offers a rare and direct test of the hypothesis that team speed and youth are the coming wave. The fact that Team NA and Team Europe faced off against each other in the first two exhibition matches draw this comparison into sharp relief.

We rarely get the chance to formally test a hypothesis in hockey. The fate of Team NA offers us a rare opportunity to do something like a controlled study. If the “young guns” overachieve relative to expectations, we have fairly convincing evidence that hockey is turning in the direction of youth and speed. If they stumble, and the European squad overachieves, we have evidence that the status quo is safe. This alone makes the experiment worth the risk.

The first two contests between Team NA and the European squad is admittedly a potentially misleading test. The Europeans had very little chance to practice as a team. Many of their players were involved in pre-World Cup games. Their travel demands were severe. Nonetheless, in their first two meetings, Team NA outscored their opponents 11 to 4. Most commentators noted that the Europeans seemed to turn things around in the third period of their second engagement, but almost no one expected the kids to dominate the most experienced team. That same European squad went on to defeat the defensive-minded Swedes, scoring six times in their third game.

Admittedly, Team NA stumbled in their final exhibition game against Czech’s, losing 3–2. The kids have an uphill battle to get out of a tough Group B. But if they do, we have the best test available that speed and youth are the vanguard.

Now here is something even more important: the NHL has made arrangements to implement new high-tech player tracking technology for the World Cup of Hockey that will give us a fresh look at this question. This technology has been tried before, but he NHL promises that things are now improved. We will finally have the chance to put actual numbers to this question. The technology involves careful tracking and real time data collection on both the players on ice and the puck. Instead of speculating about how much faster the young guns are, we will be able to put numbers to the matter.

For all these reasons, the World Cup of Hockey is now positioned to break the ice on the question of where the game is headed.

I’m itching to see those data.